Movie 5 Strength Checker
Goku's Strength When we first see Goku in the movie, he is firing Kamehamehas into the sea. While watching this, Muten Roshi states that Goku has gotten stronger "ever since he returned." From this, we know Goku is stronger than when he was on Namek, but we don't know by how much. How does Goku compare to 100% Freeza in this movie? Right off the bat, Final Form Cooler shows his dominance by crushing Goku. Goku decides to step it up and begins using the Kaio-ken, presumably the 10-fold variation as this battle mirrors his fight with Freeza, but cannot harm Cooler at all. Through a show of brute power, Cooler cruises straight through what is likely a Kaio-ken x20 Kamehameha. Cooler is far too powerful for Goku at this point and proceeds to thrash him about effortlessly. As a Super Saiyan, Goku is able to tank Final Form Cooler's punch to the gut. This is a good implication that Toei has a rather large Super Saiyan boost considering Cooler's tanking feat. The gap between Goku and Cooler is not as large as the implication from Goku tanking Cooler's punch would indicate, though, as Cooler laughs off a punch from Goku in return, and his supernova pushes Goku to the limit. Cooler's Strength For a long time, fans have argued about who is stronger between Cooler and Freeza. While the movie itself states that Cooler is stronger, the argument is more about Cooler's fourth form (aka his "true form") compared to Freeza's fourth form. To begin, Goku starts the fight in his regular form and appears to be at an advantage against True Form Cooler. Cooler states in the movie that he can control his power better than his brother, so we can assume he doesn't need to bulk up to use 100% of his power like Freeza does. What is established from this is that Base Goku is slightly superior to True Form Cooler. Logic would dictate that 100% Freeza is stronger than True Form Cooler. The next part of the debate is whether Final Form Cooler (aka "5th Form" Cooler) surpassed his 100% Freeza. After being defeated by Goku in hand-to-hand combat, Cooler decides to unveil his final form, and says this form is what put him above Freeza right before beginning his transformation. While Cooler is powering up to his final form, Goku comments: "Wow! He's even stronger than Freeza!" It's confirmed that Final Form Cooler is indeed superior to 100% Freeza at this point. To reiterate, only when powering up is Cooler more powerful than Freeza, so Freeza is indeed stronger than Cooler outside of his final form. Minor Characters In the beginning of the movie, Cooler's Armored Squadron fight Goku and are at a noticeable disadvantage. However, before Goku can finish the fight, Cooler comes and fires a death beam at Goku's back. Goku is carried off by Gohan to a cave, and Gohan rushes to Korin's Tower to get some senzu beans. Piccolo fights the Armored Squadron next and annihilates them without much difficulty. This would seem like a problem since he defeats them with much less difficulty then Goku, whereas it's been established on Namek that Goku even in his regular form far outstripped Piccolo. This points to Goku simply being suppressed against the Armored Squadron, and his fight against True Form Cooler supports that. Furthermore, Piccolo is one-shotted by Cooler while Goku survives with less of a severe injury, albeit both were pretty bad. Before Piccolo shows up, the group terrorizes Gohan. They easily deal with him, indicating that they are stronger than their Freeza counterparts, the Ginyu Force. By the end of the Freeza Saga, Gohan was at a level to where he could defeat the Ginyu Force by himself, but the Armored Squadron beat him like he was a goat. This shows that they are far superior to the Armored Squadron. Some like to argue that Salza was much stronger than his teammates due to how long he lasted against Piccolo compared to them, but this could be explained as Piccolo toying with him to allow Gohan more time to get the senzu beans to Goku. Where Does the Movie Fit Into the Timeline? A lot of fans place this movie during the earlier portion of the three year training period before the androids show up. This is a logical conclusion since Cooler is avenging Freeza, but there are quite a few discrepancies that make this choice hard to work with. The first discrepancy is the fact that the movie came out the same month that Mecha Freeza came to Earth with King Cold and was killed by Trunks. The latest chapter of the manga, which is the volume where Trunks finishes off King Cold, was released only five days before the movie. This leads into the next discrepancy, which is that Cooler only mentions getting revenge for Freeza and not their father, King Cold, who he held in high regard while he disliked Freeza. This could logically point to Cold having never come to Earth. The final couple discrepancies have to do with Goku, who needs rage to turn into a Super Saiyan, and doesn't appear to know Instant Transmission (Shunkan Ido). This would be odd, because when Goku arrives home from Yardrat, he has full control of his Super Saiyan form, and displays Instant Transmission to the entire group. By these discrepancies, we at Shinden Reborn have concluded that Movie 5 takes place in an alternate timeline where Goku never goes to Yardrat. He returns straight home after defeating Freeza. The Hax Certain members of the fanbase believe in a "hax" that is in many of Toei Animation's movies. However, there are ways to combat the hax. The hax argument stems from this statement from Cooler: "You did well enough to have defeated my brother." This statement is referring to Base Goku. Cooler is implying that Base Goku is more powerful than Freeza. However, later on when Goku turns Super Saiyan, Cooler states: "This must have been the power that defeated Freeza. Now I see why he was no match for you." That contradicts Cooler's earlier statement, and it would lower the Super Saiyan multiplier. In a paragraph earlier, it was explained that the Super Saiyan boost should be big, or else Cooler's tanking feat would not make any sense. Final Power Chain From the text above, we have come to the conclusion that this movie's power chain goes as follows: Super Saiyan Goku >> Final Form Cooler >> Super Saiyan Goku (Namek) > 100% Freeza >>> Base Goku >= True Form Cooler >>> Piccolo >>> Armored Squadron >>> Gohan >>> Ginyu Force